Chapter #39The Secret History of Julian Dey, Part 2 by: Seuzz   Fifteen months ago.
You frown down at the golden disk--size and thickness of a dinner plate, weight of a laptop computer--and sigh. The name JULIAN PHILIP DEY is inscribed in ruby-red letters around its edge. Another failure.
You return the disc into the machine's tray and seal the lid. You settle back in the chair. A hum comes from above, and a quiet numbness steals over you as the drill touches your brain pan, like a sparrow dipping its bill in a pool. On the monitor the numbers on the display flicker and change: 81.73% ... 89.29% ... 97.16% ... 100.00%. You feel a slight tickle as the drill rises back into position. You check the tray, just to be sure: Yes, the disc has vanished; the machine has returned that fragment of your P3 to your being.
P3 ... Personal Characteristics, Third Type ... Anima, as the Libra Personae barbarically calls it. It's the key. It explains your peculiar psychology--your undying conviction that you are Jameson Hyde-White, not Julian Dey, and have possessed Dey's body like a ghost. It is also the key to your future plans. Gaudy fantasy writers might call it "soul swapping": removing P3 from one individual and placing it in the body of another, whose P3 is then placed in the body of the first. It could lead to a kind of immortality, moving one's P3 into younger host bodies as each successor body aged or sickened. It can also--as your own case shows--be used to dominate the psychology of an unwilling victim.
But you cannot find a way of using it as you like!
It's all the fault of the Libra Personae, and the utterly unscientific way its author put it together. Typical medieval ham-handedness. Instead of a proper transplant, it only shows how to extract bits of P3 at a time. Set the bits of one person onto another, and that person becomes convinced that he is the person whose P3 has been put upon him, as Julian Dey--which, you have to remind yourself, is who you really are--is convinced that he is Jameson Hyde-White because you--that is to say, Hyde-White, whom you are truly convinced you are ...
Argh!
You would like to be immortal, but you can't figure out a way to pull it off. You could remove Hyde-White's P3 from Julian Dey's body, but that wouldn't transfer your consciousness: you would just return to feeling that you were Julian Dey. But you despise Dey (even though you know that's who you really are) and don't want to be him. You want to be Jameson Hyde-White, even if it means being stuck pretending to be Julian Dey.
Oh dear, you're getting another one of those headaches again.
Nor can you use your modern variation on the Libra trick to extract yourself. Over the past twenty-seven months, and with the help of loot pillaged from a small town in the United States, Vulcan's engineers have built a machine that can extract P3, either in whole or in varying amounts, from a subject. But when you use it on yourself—like just now—it only removes the P3 of Julian Dey, not of this hybrid creature that you feel yourself to be. And so you can't transfer your consciousness that way either.
You are also baulked in your schemes to use P3 to dominate the will of others. The body of Jameson Hyde-White is dead and buried, so you cannot use his P3 on fresh recruits the way he used his P3 on Dey to produce you. Nor do you feel safe using Dey's P3 in your schemes; you know the treacherous little pimple well-enough to know any faux-Deys would regard you as Jameson Hyde-White's ghost and resent working with you, probably to the point of rebellion.
You've been able to turn the peculiar construction of your psychology to advantage in only one regard, by building a booby-trapped lock for your private apartments. It will unlock for anyone with Hyde-White's P3 (meaning it will unlock for you), but will extract the P3 of any others who attempt to open it, thus disabling them. It goes well with two other locks you have designed: one that detects P1 (what the Libra calls imago) and one that detects P2 (what it calls essentia). With these locks, only the unique individual--you--who has the P3 of Jameson Hyde-White and the P1 of Julian Dey can gain entrance.
As you rise from the test chair you catch sight of yourself in the mirror. Whatever can be said against Julian Dey, he is a strikingly handsome devil, and you straighten your jacket appreciatively. Been donkey's years since dear old Jamie got it on with unattached women: ambition kept getting in the way. And at twenty-eight, Julian feels the itch quite strongly. Feeling it right now, in fact. You've given some thought to making a "copy" of yourself, someone to help with the work, or even take it over while you enjoy yourself more.
He'd need to get into the apartment, too, though. And it still wouldn't be a good idea to give him Julian's brain patterns. But you've got ideas for handling that.
You close up the lab and return to your office, to take up again that book on hypnosis. That seems like your best shot at controlling things. Use hypnosis to tag certain areas of your memory; a flenser to cover them up; and post-hypnotic techniques to bring them back when certain triggers are touched.
* * * * *
Two months ago.
The vault door opens with a click. You step inside, and blink in surprise. In the middle of the space something small and round and white is dangling from a string.
Why is a golf ball hanging in the middle of--?
Inside your mind, chains uncoil, and suppressed memories spill out ...
You smile to yourself, remembering all. It's of no importance at the moment, though. Onto the waiting shelf you slide three golden discs, each containing a considerable fraction of Julian Dey's P3. You keep the other two discs under your arm as you exit. The door slides shut behind you, but you wait patiently. A helmet descends from the ceiling, and you fit it around your skull. Dizziness overwhelms you ...
You sway a little on your feet, and glance down at your hands. You're only carrying two discs now, not the five you left the lab with. The other three must be-- You glance behind you at the vault door. Yes, they must be in there. As always after these errands, you wonder why you can never remember entering or exiting the vault, and can never remember what is inside it. As always comes the firm reply: You're a clever bastard, Julian. You've got your reasons.
You shake your head clear and return to Lab 3C, handing one of the discs to the technician in the control room, then go into the operating chamber. "Alright, Mr. Jones," you tell the middle-aged man with the drooping moustache. "Let's see what we can do about that tumor."
He winces sadly and sits in the chair. "Gonna 'urt, is it?" he asks.
"No," you assure him. "Revolutionary technique. Boys down in the loading dock will be astonished at your quick recovery. Just close your eyes now." He complies; you signal the technician, and as the drill slowly descends you grasp the poor man's face and pull while muttering primitive, archaic words.
A mask comes away in your hand. The boy with the golden hair that now sits in the chair looks a lot healthier, even after the drill has driven deep into his skull and begun to hum.
A few minutes later it cuts out. The technician behind the glass gives you a thumbs up. The drill hums again. You stand back, arms folded, watching expectantly. The drill cuts out, and ascends. A few seconds later the boy stirs. He opens his eyes and blinks. He looks up at you, and his face splits in a grin. "Hi Dad," he says.
It disconcerts you for a moment, until you realize it's just a kind of joke.
* * * * *
"Trouble is," Joe says, "I feel like I'm the real Julian Dey."
"So do I," says Frank.
"Of course you do. That's the point," you reply.
"Of course I get the point," Joe says. "But who's in charge?" His grin is sly.
"I suggest a division of responsibilities," you say. "I am in charge of what goes on inside this building. I am also responsible for overall strategy. But you two have field control and can fight over that amongst yourselves."
"Frank has always been in charge of that," Frank rumbles, and folds his arms.
"You mean I has always been in charge," Joe corrects him.
"You've never been--"
"Just fixing your pronoun, bro. We can play it the way we always have. Which means I'm gonna turn your life into a smoking horror."
"Settling into our assumed personas?" you ask. "Good. Now, here are the dossiers with the contingency plan the late Professor Hyde-White put in place against the day that things came unraveled in Saratoga Falls." You give each of them a manila folder. "It'll be easy to insert you, and for you to play along with that cover story. Supposedly, a boy named 'Will Prescott' trapped you, but he's just a cover story for another cover story." You go over it with them: the fake story about Braydon Delp and Aubrey Blackwell which is supposed to hide Will Prescott's involvement in Frank and Joe's disappearance, and the use of Will Prescott to hide Fane's involvement in it.
"Why so elaborate," Frank asks grumpily when you're finished.
"The more red herrings, the less chance the Stellae can tumble onto the real trail. And onto us." You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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